Commentary on popular culture and society, from a (mostly) psychological perspective

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Conservatives: Don't Play into Alinsky's Hands

Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this...Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

I read with disappointment Andrew Klavan's post over at PJ Media entitled "Why We Should Be Unfair to Herman Cain" in which he explains that it is the right, not the left who must be fair:

And yes, it’s unfair. But there’s a reason it’s unfair—a reason it should be unfair. There’s a reason we right wingers vet our candidates while the left adulates theirs, a reason we condemn our miscreants while the left elevates theirs, a reason our news outlets cover stories that the left covers up.

The reason is: we’re the good guys. We have to do what’s right. The left doesn’t. Sorry, but that’s the way it works. It’s the price you pay for defending what’s true and good, the price of holding yourself to a high moral standard. Our politicians have to be better than their politicians. Our journalists have to be more honest. Even our protesters have to behave with decorum and decency—and still suffer being slandered—while theirs can act like animals and commit acts of violence and lawlessness and spew anti-semitic filth and still find themselves excused and glorified...

Herman Cain is going to have to run the gauntlet, not just of a racist and dishonest left that wants to destroy him but of a fair-minded and decency-loving right that wants him to come fully clean and let the voters decide how we should proceed. The fight for truth, liberty and morality requires sacrifice and self-examination. The self-righteous quest for power over others does not.

The world is just as unfair as you think it is. You’ll never catch the devil hanging on a cross.

Bullshit. What Klavan is advocating is political suicide. He might as well have taken his playbook from Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals where Alinsky's fourth rule is "Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this..."

Mr. Klavan, telling the right that they have to live up to some impossible standard while excusing the left is laughable. All it will get you is defeated. Do you remember the Fresh Prince of Bel Air episode where Will Smith's Uncle Phil was running for political office? His opponent, the guy who played George Jefferson in The Jeffersons bad-mouthed Uncle Phil all over the media. The family told Uncle Phil that he needed to fight back but Uncle Phil stated that he was "not going to sink to that level." He lost the election by a landslide. He did eventually get appointed to the office when his opponent died by the governor but that's not the point.

The point is, we must not let the left use our morality to hold us hostage. You may never catch the devil hanging on the cross, but your double standard will leave the right hanging in defeat, just like Uncle Phil, but without the safety net of his opponent dying. Life isn't a nostalgic TV show or fiction book. The good guy doesn't always win just because you want him to. And though you can feel noble about being the honorable one, honor is no substitute for the loss of freedom, increased government regulation, and economic woes that our country will suffer if the left wins on election day.

54 Comments:

I will not beleive the accusations without pictures at this point. A sincere presser doesn't mean anything other than slickness and a glib liar to me. Partisan hack Gloria Allred conducting yet another hit job on a GOP guy? That just makes it harder to beleive this womans story.

I hope this woman gets the media style anal exam leftists advocate for members of the GOP.

I've been heavily mocking the left on this issue and reminding them of what it means to live by their rules.

At worst Cain made a clumsy pass on a date. The woman was not an employee, no harassment. He's still at a higher level than Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, John Edwards, Gary Condit,... And, now the libs want us to play Puritans. Forgetta about it!

Many people I've known, maybe most, ahve done worse. Remember Jefferson and Sally Hennings? We're electing a president not canonizing a saint.

We do indeed need to take Alinsky's advice to heart, and to the enemy. Hey, they want to be the enemy, let 'em. We just need to remember that the position of the "moral high ground" usually looks suspiciously like a doormat.

At the beginning of WWII the Japanese Army under Tojo was maltreating our POWs. The Commandant of the Marine Corps issued an order to take no prisoners. The Japanese noted this and began treating the POWs better. Still bad but not starving them. My uncle was in the Bataan Death March.

During the Civil War when Sherman was doing his march to the sea he was marching the Southern POWs with the formation. When the Southern Army started planting IEDs on the roads Sherman required the POWs to dig them up and sent a message of that fact to the opposing general. The result was that the South stopped planting the IEDs.

Sometimes the smart thing to do is let the enemy set the rules and then play by them. The enemy, when they see their folks under the same gun, have a tendency to clean up their act.

Frankly, I find the enemy stance to be a bit silly for (alleged) grownups.

Maybe it's the winner-takes-all American system that promotes this. Lots of European countries form coalitions, and they seem to work more with one another because of that.

The Republicans are 100% good; the Democrats are 100% evil. That's how I used to think as well. Look at some of the religious fruit-loops on the right (like Pat Robertson or the deceased Jerry Falwell) or the heavy-duty chivalrists (I thought this site was in favor of men's rights). The Right can really be as nutty as the Left. I'm not kidding.

Germany is not going broke, in fact German business and exports are starting to boom - in contrast to the United States (if you want to make those short-term comparisons). Germany has a coalition system.

"Is it really a winner take all system? If so, why do I have a house in the country on 2 acres?"

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Are you really that dense? Winner-take-all just means that the party with the highest number of (electoral congress) votes takes the presidency or respective seat. As opposed to a coalition system that has to form partnerships with other parties to build a majority.

There was a similar plotline in The American President (written by a brilliant dramatist even though he's a tree stump-stupid liberal). The Dem president (Michael Douglas) refuses to engage nasty Repub hopeful Richard Dreyfus in a pissing match over Douglas's girlfriend.

I recall a remark made by Mario Cuomo. "I am electing a president, not a Matre'D." He's right. Being a national politician is not about being Jimmy Stewart from It's A Wonderful Life (nor Mr Smith Goes to Washington). It's about who lives and who dies. And it's dirty and vicious and nobody takes prisoners.

Neither Detroit or Michigan. My oldest son's visited Detroit. His girlfriend likes to photograph city scapes. She loves to take pictures of the massive areas of empty, deteriorating buildings. The best desolate city scapes in the country.

I disagree quite strongly. Yes, politics is a messy thing, however to lower yourself to the level of your opponent can make you into someone I won't vote for. Period.

You are held hostage to your morality only if your morality is phony. Moreover, if you are dealing with someone who is amoral, which composes a large chunk of the most vocal left, your only choice is to maintain your own morality and live with the unfairness.

Using the excuse; he/she did it so I can to leads to moral squalor.

I was never bothered by Clinton and Lewinski except when he lied about it. I don't like Cain anyway, but I'll reserve judgement on this matter. However, he did put a stake in the ground with his denials. If he lied, he should go down and the notion that it's okay because he shouldn't be held hostage by morality is asinine.

(Above all remember that Alinksy makes the basic assumption that the radical has no morality at all and will stop at nothing to obtain his or her goals. Facing that is a difficult proposition and in the end all you can rely on is that most people are decent and prefer those with integrity to those without.)

@Joe: I respect your ethics. Having said that, let's not conflate the morality of personal interaction with political maneuver. Machiavelli might just be a scumbag, but he was right. And nobody is lowering themselves to the level of their opponent. The political arena is vile in the same way a combat zone is barren of human decency.

Act like a Boy Scout in the Tet Offensive and see where that gets ya.

I will wager there hasn't been a president in the entire history of this country that never once did something I would personally find morally repulsive. Winston Churchill knew the Luftwaffe was en route to bomb Coventry and he did nothing (else he would have tipped off the German high command that the Enigma decoder had been compromised and from that lost the best intelligence for the second front...D-Day). Politics and government is brutality. There are no saints. Only sinners who are divided between effective and ineffective.

But I get tired of seeing some of her hypocritical stances. She is starkly in favor of independent earn-it-yourself people, but then she gets her money from ... drum roll ... someone else.

I don't have access to Helen's financial information, but mutually agreed upon situations between adults are just fine with me. There are ways to earn you keep other than bringing in an outside income.

Strange how some are so eager to find fault in others. Many of those types do so in order to bolster their own egos. Me, I relish in my own hypocrisy and look with scorn upon anyone who expects me to live up to some standard they set. I refuse to stoop to their standards, as would any other superior being such as myself.

helen has provided a forum for men to air their grievances regarding relationships and the true nature of women, and i think that is interesting.

it certainly makes for vigorous discussion, and the occasional fight in the dog pound....

whenever i'm uncertain of a woman's motives, i re-visit heretical.com and do a little more reading.

i recently found a blog that contains the entire "tyranny of ambiguity" written by sheppard that lays out his thesis regarding the true nature of women.

it makes fascinating, if not downright terrifying, reading for those resolute enough to read it.

and mark...you are right, but as is the nature of our existence here, you hurt yourself in the knowledge....

in many ways understanding the true nature of women is the forbidden fruit.

i sit sometimes in starbucks on an afternoon and watch the steady stream of narcissistic psychopathic predators buying their $8 lattes and dreaming of more and more expensive shoes...and shudder to think that i was raised by one, put up for adoption by another, married three of them and still get caught looking occasionally...and i know they love to be looked at, desperate to be looked at, but despise the one looking.

does that make me misogynistic, or just aware of the true nature of such animals?

Helen can't be held hypocritical because of the actions of other women, feminism or society in general. Feminist philosophy is saturated with hypocrisy* and enables many women in Helen's position to put that hypocrisy into action.

*I am woman. I am strong. BUT - I need all sorts of special laws, legal protections/advantages. Don't dare you come on to me or offend me in any way, I can't take it. Schools, colleges and all fields of study need to be adapted to be more friendly for me. If I divorce a man for any reason, I get the kids. Period. Plus, you pay me way more than the actual cost of caring for that child. If worse comes to worse, I get to kill you and claim abuse. Thousands of feminists will support me if I do this. Why would I lie?

Zorro, conflating war with politics is absurd, if not insane. While metaphors can be illustrative, they are still metaphors. The cold reality is that personal integrity and political maneuvering are related. You cannot maintain integrity while being a true Machiavellian.

It isn't ironic that the ability to be ashamed of past behavior is predicated on having morality. If you discard your morality for expediency, pretty soon the ends will always justify the means and you will become a sociopath (and if powerful, a tyrant.)

I'm going to have to read Klavan before I comment, but from what I see here it is important to remember that the winners have several perqs not available to the losers--writing history, and making the rules.

i was in starbucks yesterday and every seat in the place was taken with women. the front area with couches and stuffed chairs was commandeered by a group of women with new-borns and one woman stood shooshing her child while gaurding two open seats behind her saving them for two other women waiting for service in the line.

I got into an argument with a friend over this during a recent political campaign. The Democrats steal Republican campaign signs (and engage in other dishonest tactics, and that style of politics is one of the reasons that I cannot stand the left. I don't see why I should feel obligated to steal people's campaign signs because their side does it too. I'm not into being morally pure and I would never rat on allies who engage in such tactics.

The left also loves to insult and threaten people, and engage in deliberate acts of political violence. Should this be duplicated on the right? How far should it go?

It's not a matter of duplicating tactics. It's not falling for their ploy, not agreeing that we have to live up to the values they define as ours.

We don't need to apoligize to them or play by their rules. Tell them to pluck the log out of their eye, clean up their own backyard. Remind them of being thieves (stealing signs), spread that word. Remind them that wanting what the "rich" have without earning it is greed. Show them their hate, there's plenty of it. Don't say, "Oh, you're right. We should acquiesce to your judgements."

"I don't have access to Helen's financial information, but mutually agreed upon situations between adults are just fine with me. There are ways to earn you keep other than bringing in an outside income.

Strange how some are so eager to find fault in others. Many of those types do so in order to bolster their own egos. Me, I relish in my own hypocrisy and look with scorn upon anyone who expects me to live up to some standard they set. I refuse to stoop to their standards, as would any other superior being such as myself."

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Why is it such a taboo to discuss a parasitical housewife woman?

Seriously.

I have seem this reaction from women and more strongly from men. It's none of your business why I am paying for a sit-at-home.

I have seen feminists go on for hours about every little aspect of men living with women - right down to men unfairly leaving the toilet seat up after pissing.

And then you mention that some women have a nicer, stress-free life sitting at home, and the immediate reaction is "that's none of your business".

Lots of married men get a bit of a panicked look about them when you bring up the fact that they are commuting and working their asses off and Pumpkin is sitting on her comfortable butt watching Dr. Phil. They get far more aggressive than feminists.

Frankly, I can draw my conclusions as to what is REALLY going on with the "arrangement".

But it should be brought out into the open. Why not discuss it? I just don't get it.

"Thus spake the latest sage from the Occupy a convenient rape victim movement."

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Don't know if your cryptic message is about me.

If it is --- I have zero interest in "traditional women" (read: manipulators if there ever was one).

But I really do think - for the sake of the idiot men who are paying for these house-pigs - that they at least do their traditional shit on the other side and not just take, take, take. Meaning they should bake their cookies and SHUT THEIR FUCKING MOUTHS.